


serenade (feel our hearts beat, beat together)

by theriveroflight



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, Luka Couffaine Knows, Magical Realism, Multi, Music, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:46:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29562105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: In which Luka writes a song.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Juleka Couffaine & Luka Couffaine, Luka Couffaine & Rose Lavillant
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	serenade (feel our hearts beat, beat together)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rikkapikasnikka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rikkapikasnikka/gifts).



> happy birthday Rikka! enjoy soft pining Luka 💙

The heartsongs can exhaust Luka if he focuses on listening for them too long.

He’s only human, after all, and he suspects he wasn’t supposed to have this ability at all. There’s only so much he can listen to before it grows overwhelming.

Paris is a big city, after all.

(He remembers growing up, crying at the dissonance, over and over and Mom once said that she had no idea how to calm him.)

(He remembers a little bit of how he calmed himself, focusing on her song until it drowned out everyone else’s. Even among her chaos he could find peace.)

So many people. So many songs.

He usually tries to filter them out, only keep the ones of the people he cares for. Juleka’s. His mother’s.

His friends don’t really _understand_ what it is. Luka never tells them, because “I can hear the song of your heart” is a little _creepy_ and he just wants to have normal friends and a normal life.

Not that “living on a boat” is a recipe for normalcy, but sometimes he’s a little sick of the life Mom chooses to lead. Luka has never brought a friend home, never said how he got into punk. Though he talks about the band…

Juleka embraces chaos more easily. She seems more dainty, but that hides the fact that the song in her heart is _complicated,_ with soaring strings and distorted guitar and heavy drums coming together in a way that manages to be perfect in its lack of restraint.

Luka knows his song is a little simpler. Just a steady beat, a guitar solo composed in a pentatonic scale, a bassline to keep it steady. He thinks in instrumentals.

Composing lyrics is the hardest part of the band. Rose writes songs about unicorns and pretty things; Juleka writes songs about invisibility; Ivan has trouble with anything musical except drum parts; Luka’s weakness is lyrics; and Adrien knows nothing about poetry.

They make a band, despite it all, so their songs certainly end up a strange mix of it all.

There are very few songs that Luka could listen to all the time. He enjoys listening to Juleka’s, but sometimes all the elements can overwhelm him. Mom’s no longer calms him — it’s certainly more calming than hearing the entire city at once, but it isn’t like that.

His own, even, bores him after a certain amount of time. But he’s a simple man, his heart isn’t complicated.

Luka knows himself.

That all changes when he meets Marinette. Her song is different from most of the others he listens to. Marinette seems like the kind of girl who would enjoy pop music, but all Luka hears is a constant cello, moving in and out, with other parts dancing on top, fading in and out of significance. Wavering, with some kind of conflict.

And he finds himself fascinated by her song. It seems that Marinette walks a tense and fragile line; that only serves to intrigue him more.

And then Mom is akumatized, and though he knows Ladybug’s song is dominated by a triumphant horn section, if he listens closely he can hear Marinette’s cello motif under that.

Chat Noir’s song is different but complementary to Ladybug’s. It reminds him a little bit of something classical, a little bit reminiscent of a violin concerto he heard once (though he can’t recall what it is).

And when he meets Adrien, the violin is muted in favor of bringing out the piano accompaniment behind it, but it is still the same. He sees through the illusion to the truth underneath.

The songs have changed, though. Their cores are similar, but they’re not the same that they used to be. Adrien still has a violin concerto, but it’s a different one from what was playing before, and he doesn’t know what the reasons are for the shift. It’s also two dueling violins, instead of a violin and a piano.

It’s still beautiful, though, and it is still reminiscent of Adrien, so Luka loves it as he loves Adrien.

(He doesn’t get his hopes up, though. Just because he’s _capable_ of playing the fiddle doesn’t mean that Adrien’s song changed because of _Luka.)_

Marinette’s cello changes to a bass guitar, which is an interesting shift, but Luka doesn’t know how to analyze that. It is still the same notes, transposed a key down to fit better within the range of a bass guitar, but it gives the song an entirely different timbre.

But when Marinette chooses him, her shift at the very least makes sense. The love she picks is him.

But Ladybug’s song places a keyboard at the forefront.

He wonders if she has truly decided. But maybe he doesn’t need to, because she can choose both.

He listens, and he adapts.

The steadiness of his own song is relieving. In the middle of all these changes, he doesn’t know that he could handle it if his own song changed as well.

Picking out Adrien and Marinette’s songs, above the threads of every single heart, is something he has learned to do through practice, through trying to filter that.

But now he hears their songs entwined with each other, and it’s…beautiful. Far more beautiful than he ever could have imagined. He tries to imagine his own song among them, but he can’t. They just…they sound perfect together, and he tries to imagine his own simple song with them.

First the beat. They don’t have any drums (he’s one of the few he knows with a drum part in his song), and he’s one of the few. Marinette’s bass reminds unchanged, but he adds the guitar part mentally…

He grabs his sheet paper notebook, and starts writing.

* * *

“This is beautiful,” Juleka says. “I really like the parts here. They’re a little complex, but not to the point where the song is overly busy. Though I’m not sure if…”

“I can try for the violin part,” Luka answers. “Worse comes to worse, we can always add it in production via Midi or something.”

“There’s also no room here for a vocal part,” Juleka says. “I mean, I’m good with complicated songs, but I don’t know how to integrate one here.”

“It isn’t designed to have vocals.”

“So what, an interlude?”

They’re planning an album, he knows. They’re uncertain when they’ll get to record it, but they want to have the writing done.

He tilts his head. “Yeah. I already put it together using midi tracks, but I think it’ll sound better with real instruments.”

“How late did you stay up doing this?” she asks.

“Like you don’t have insomnia,” Luka teases in return. “I get that it sucks, but you don’t get to lecture me for not getting proper sleep.”

“The difference is that I don’t have a choice in the matter,” she answers. “You can get proper sleep if you want.”

“The sacrifices we make for art, yeah?”

He hasn’t shown it to the two most important people, though.

He texts Adrien and Marinette the MP3 file.

Now to wait.

* * *

Juleka also apparently takes the liberty of texting it to the Kitty Section groupchat too, with the caption of “interlude thought?”

Adrien texts him back individually, gushing about it and how the violin part reminds him of a piece he learned (Luka isn’t well-versed enough in classical music, he doesn’t know that well enough even if Adrien thinks he does). Marinette doesn’t know the music theory stuff as well, but she still appreciates it.

Luka breathes a sigh of relief, but really — should he have expected the combination of heartsongs to be anything except stunning?

After all, Adrien and Marinette’s were already perfect together. And though Luka’s isn’t quite the same degree, it’s perfect for _him._ Mixing the three makes sense, and he thinks that his late-night self does have some good ideas at times.

Rose texts him, asking if Juleka was really the one that composed it. He responds asking how Rose figured it out, and Rose responds that it was because Juleka always leaves room for vocals.

This song doesn’t need words, though. Any words would just fall short of portraying the meaning, lyrics would fail to convey exactly what the point of the song was — a merging of the three of them.

And, Luka realizes, it _is_ a love song.

* * *

Marinette asks him, the next time they see each other, what inspired him to compose it.

He responds that it was her and Adrien. She smiles, and says she’s glad that she managed to help inspire this, because it’s one of the most beautiful songs she’s heard.

 _And a part of that is_ your own _beauty,_ Luka almost says, but he remembers why he doesn’t tell anyone about his ability.

“What if I told you that…”

“That what?”

“It’s based on the songs in your hearts.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It…represents your soul. I can hear everyone’s, but yours is one of the best I’ve ever heard. Or maybe that’s just me.”

“I think that’s…poetic. And really cool.”

“You don’t think it’s…creepy, or anything?”

“I don’t. I mean, what can you do with it? It’s just listening. I guess I could see why, but I don’t think so. Because I know _you,_ and the Luka I know wouldn’t misuse that knowledge.”

“Thank you,” he says, and he hopes that her faith isn’t misplaced.

* * *

It takes a little longer, but Adrien comes in to record his part for the keyboard, and Luka makes sure to talk to Adrien about it too.

“Are you okay with recording this song?”

“It reminds me a little bit of myself, so I like it,” Adrien answers. “It’s…nice.”

“You and Marinette inspired it, so…”

Adrien looks a little bit stunned by that. “I didn’t think I could ever inspire anything this beautiful.”

“Believe it,” Luka answers. “And believe in your own self-worth, Adrien.”

“I’m trying,” Adrien answers.

“And sometimes, that’s all we can ask.”

* * *

Luka, recording the violin part, finds that his hands are almost guided into the notes. It’s more difficult than anything he’s ever played before, requires more technique, requires more knowledge — he listens to more classical than he ever has before, trying to figure out how to get that sort of tone out of his instrument.

But he plays the final product in his _quality_ headphones, and it sounds good.

He wishes that it were as easy to be with them as it were to compose it.

But he loves them. And he hopes that they love him in return.


End file.
